I'd read something similar, before. IIRC, the article claimed that if Roe v. Wade had been remanded back to lower courts, then there would have come sufficient social change over the rest of the 70s that abortion would not have garnered anywhere near the same publicity had the issue been revisited in the 80s, with minor steps being made along the way to legitimize abortion in cases of incest and rape, and in cases where bearing the child presented a real and present danger to the mother's survival.

Basically, if you change things slowly enough people will barely even notice, or if they do notice, it at least won't bother them as much.

While I accept the fact that change in the U.S. seems to always have to come at a glacial pace (thanks to the south and midwest) I find the fact that change must occur at a pace that is ok with the bigots of the country infuriating._________________

Our progress is actually pretty fast based on the world standard, and we're so much less shitty than most of the rest of the world that it isn't even funny.

The issue is that given our level of general prosperity and the resources we have available, we shouldn't be progressing at our level. We should be progressing as fast or faster than similarly prosperous, modern nations.

Elsewhere in the world, like France, the issue gets even more convoluted as we watch societies engage in sudden reversal of progress in large areas. I always like to think of progress as being a fairly constant march forward, but then I see stuff happen in europe due to changing sociocultural issues and I worry about what could set that off here.

Almost in Spain we like to think that if some "revolutionary" change don't does that some people go nuclear, maybe isn't that revolutionary. I am talking about the Spanish Catholic Synod. If they aren't organizing a rally against, the law has ended being tepid..._________________Be mellow
Be compassionate

While I accept the fact that change in the U.S. seems to always have to come at a glacial pace (thanks to the south and midwest) I find the fact that change must occur at a pace that is ok with the bigots of the country infuriating.

Iowa loves it's gay marriage and has since 2009. Who's holding up what now?_________________Scire aliquid laus est, pudor est non discere velle
"It is laudable to know something, it is disgraceful to not want to learn"
~Seneca

Yeah, I think the issue is less geographic than demographic. Though the rural versus urban divide is pretty damn strong regardless of where you are._________________The older I get, the more certain I become of one thing. True and abiding cynicism is simply a form of cowardice.

I think the glacial pace of queer equality also gas quite a bit to do with the aids epidemic. It s still around, and I am not belittling the current situation, but it is not as far as I know affecting queer people in the same numbers, nor are queer people receiving the same amount of stigma for it. I don't have any trustworthy stats to accompany this observation, and would appreciate correction - but I am pretty sure that is part of it.

Also, I think this is all just directly related to ending slavery and women gaining suffrage, the right to vote, and higher paying means of employment. It's all too damned slow, but I'm glad it slogs forward._________________::lesser crisis mode::

I may have mixed up what you are saying, but AIDs has long been associated with gays and has carried a particularly heavy stigma with it; that people who have AIDs must be gay, or that all gay people have it, the 'gay disease'. It stems from the fact that it showed up relatively early in the gay community and spread quickly due to a combination of the swinging lifestyle some held and the lack of any kind of testing for HIV/AIDs at the time. When Freddie Mercury died it brought some serious attention to the issue and people started to wise up and get tested or use protection, but it still hasn't corrected the stigma or the stereotypes.

I also have no concrete facts or numbers to back it up, but I can tell you that it's a belief that is definitely still around that hurts both the LGBT community and people who suffer from HIV/AIDs._________________The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the covers of the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. - William Gibson, The Gernsback Continuum

I may have mixed up what you are saying, but AIDs has long been associated with gays and has carried a particularly heavy stigma with it; that people who have AIDs must be gay, or that all gay people have it, the 'gay disease'. It stems from the fact that it showed up relatively early in the gay community and spread quickly due to a combination of the swinging lifestyle some held and the lack of any kind of testing for HIV/AIDs at the time. When Freddie Mercury died it brought some serious attention to the issue and people started to wise up and get tested or use protection, but it still hasn't corrected the stigma or the stereotypes.

I also have no concrete facts or numbers to back it up, but I can tell you that it's a belief that is definitely still around that hurts both the LGBT community and people who suffer from HIV/AIDs.

I know that homophobia is still tied up with AIDS. I mean, we still have the 'No Gay/Bi men can donate blood, but straight people having unprotected sex with everyone they meet can totally do so' ban. I meant that there is a bit less of that. My perspective might be off, though, because I live in a very queer oriented place, and a sizeable number of people at my workplace are queer. If I only to to work and stay home, then homophobia and transphobia is kept to a minimum._________________::lesser crisis mode::

If I only to to work and stay home, then homophobia and transphobia is kept to a minimum.

Stripey, I know you're braver than that, if for no other reason than that you have made the choices you made in order to become the person you've always known yourself to be. True, I don't know what you face on a daily basis; I'm not even sure I'm capable of imagining it. But I do know you're strong enough to make a difference; you've already done so around here._________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning

I may have mixed up what you are saying, but AIDs has long been associated with gays and has carried a particularly heavy stigma with it; that people who have AIDs must be gay, or that all gay people have it, the 'gay disease'. It stems from the fact that it showed up relatively early in the gay community and spread quickly due to a combination of the swinging lifestyle some held and the lack of any kind of testing for HIV/AIDs at the time. When Freddie Mercury died it brought some serious attention to the issue and people started to wise up and get tested or use protection, but it still hasn't corrected the stigma or the stereotypes.

I also have no concrete facts or numbers to back it up, but I can tell you that it's a belief that is definitely still around that hurts both the LGBT community and people who suffer from HIV/AIDs.

I know that homophobia is still tied up with AIDS. I mean, we still have the 'No Gay/Bi men can donate blood, but straight people having unprotected sex with everyone they meet can totally do so' ban. I meant that there is a bit less of that. My perspective might be off, though, because I live in a very queer oriented place, and a sizeable number of people at my workplace are queer. If I only to to work and stay home, then homophobia and transphobia is kept to a minimum.

It ain't homophobia to state MSM have a much higher HIV infection rate (in NA and most of Western Europe). And it is still very much a thing. The rate of HIV/AIDS diagnoses in MSM is actually increasing again. The scare is somewhat over, but it is still medically speaking a huge issue. It is still very much the case that MSM are the group that is affected by HIV/AIDS in the west. About 20% of MSM are infected in the US, while less than half of 1% of the entire population is.

And that is also why we ban MSM from donating blood. That ain't homophobia, that's just math. Any feasible screening method for HIV and other diseases is imperfect, so the smart thing to do is to exclude groups with a too high infection rate to minimize the risks. Which is why we exclude men who have had sex with men in the last 5 years and not TEH GAYZZ! among a staggering amount of other people. (people who had sex with someone from parts of africa, drug-users, people who were in Germany for one specific time-period in the 80s etc)_________________

Yeah, you can call me out for unfounded assumptions, there, HR, and you'd be right.

And I'll still stand behind what I said to Stripey, because, in my eyes, he's earned that respect. He's been courageous on the issues he stands for, and he's maintained his point without resorting to obscenity, unruliness, and boorish, childish behavior in lieu of wit and intelligent discourse. I don't always agree with him, but I can still respect him when we disagree, because respect for others is what he shows even in disagreement.

And that has actually managed to sway my own opinions and attitudes on some topics. That's as opposed to others around here who seem to think the height of discourse is to emulate barely post-pubescent children squabbling in school halls; all they've convinced me of is the value of a bozo filter.

So, yes, Stripey's shown bravery, and he's made a difference._________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning

That's as opposed to others around here who seem to think the height of discourse is to emulate barely post-pubescent children squabbling in school halls; all they've convinced me of is the value of a bozo filter.

Ahahaha. You declared our conversation dead and stormed off to complain about it in a different thread, and yet I'm the one being childish? You need help, dude._________________"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others."
- Anne-Sophie Swetchine

I mean seriously, it's spread over 3 different threads now._________________The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the covers of the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. - William Gibson, The Gernsback Continuum